"Boys!" he cried in a panic, "don't leave me out! For God's sake, don't think I ain't willin'! I'll be out come day tomorrow!" The others both stopped and turned in their saddles. "Glad to hear ye come through, Thomas," called Jameson, "you ride south along th' Rockface. You'll go over Black Coulee way, won't ye, Dan?" "I will," said Hill. "Good. I'll go north." There was a quiet grimness in the few words, for he who rode north on such an errand tempted fate. Then the three separated, and there was only the silence and the red light of the dying day at the head of Rolling Cove. That same evening Tharon Last sat in her western doorway and watched the sun go down in majesty over the weathered peaks and ridges of the Canon Country. Billy Brent lounged on the hard earth beside the step, his fair head shining in the afterglow, his grey eyes upon the girl's face in a sort of idol-worship. The curve of her cheek, golden with tan and red with the hue of youth, was more to him than all the sunsets the world had ever seen. A deep light shone in his young eyes which, had the girl been wise, she might have seen. But Tharon was as elemental as the kitten chasing a moth out by the pansy bed, and could look in a man's face with the unconscious eyes of a child. Now she watched the pageant of the dying day in a rapt delight. "Billy," she said presently, "I've often wondered if there's another place in all the world as lovely as our Valley. Jim Last told me once that there were places so much bigger out below, that we wouldn't be a patchin' to them. Don't seem like there could be." She lifted her slim body up along the doorpost and looked long and earnestly all up and down the wonderful stretch of country that lay along the Wall from north to south. She could see the tiny dots that went for the different homesteads, scattered here and there. Up at the head there lay, hard against the frowning hills, the squat, wide blur that was Courtrey's Stronghold. Her lips compressed at sight of it. "Nope," she said, shaking her head, "I don't believe he meant it. He used to tease me a lot, you know. It's an awful big valley, an' no mistake." The rider, who had drifted up along the Wall five years before, looked down at the playing kitten and smiled with a lean crinkling of his cheeks. "It's a sure-enough big place, Tharon," he said gravely, "an' it's lovely as Eden." "Huh?" said Tharon, "where's that, Billy?" The boy sobered and looked up into her blue eyes. "Why, Tharon," he whispered, "that's where th' heart is." For a moment she regarded him. Then she smiled. "Billy," she said severely, "you're stringin' your boss. I'm sure goin' to fire you, some day, like I ben a-threatenin'." "Do--an' hire me over!" "Nope." The girl shut her pretty lips and the man's hand crept softly up and touched her wrist where it lay against her knee. "All right," he said airily, "gimme my time. I quit."